


Whistle

by YukiSkyes



Series: Tales From the Mountains of Odvirkast [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 22:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10054133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukiSkyes/pseuds/YukiSkyes
Summary: Now temporarily living on the Glasycus Mountain in search of her family, Pidge acquaints herself to her new environment with Keith's help but more importantly, she's permitted a sign of trust.





	

“What’re you writing?”

Pidge looked up from her small moleskin notebook over at Keith, who was looking over his shoulder back at her with open curiosity as they tromped through the snow.

Bright and early in the morning with breakfast warm in their bellies, he was taking her around so she could familiarize herself to the area, after all, if this was going to be her temporary home, she should at least know what her surroundings were like.

Later on, they were going to need to hunt for some furs to make into blankets and bed for Pidge. Luckily, her cold tolerance was rather high and she had magic to help keep her warm so it wasn’t much of an issue if they didn’t do it right away. It was more for comfort than anything. But everything else outside of that, she’ll have to find and get herself.

Trotting dutifully right beside Keith was Red (breaking no new ground on the name front there), her scarlet fur standing out like fresh blood in the monochromatic background. Pidge was probably no better with her bright green feathers in the middle of winter.

“Taking notes on the magic I feel here,” Pidge replied. “Glasycus is just brimming with it, more than I’ve ever felt before in my life. It’s a great opportunity for me to study it and the way it affects the environment.”

“Oh, that sounds kind of interesting,” Keith said and Pidge could tell that he wasn’t saying that just to appease her or make nice. If there was one thing she’s learned about him in the short time they’ve known each other, it was that Keith was as straightforward as they came about his own opinions and honestly, Pidge appreciated that.

“Yeah, it is. I could tell you more about it later if you want. Right now I’m just surveying, checking out which spots might be of interest.”

Later on, she was going to scope everything out from the air, but for now, it’s enough to get a feel of things at ground level. So far, Keith had taken her to the river located a short distance from the cabin where he fetched water, showed her a few of the spots he foraged when the weather was warmer, and pointed out the parts where she should stay away from. For various reasons. One of those reasons was why Keith carried a sword around with him in addition to a dagger.

Keith nodded and they walked on in silence. But Pidge has a few questions of her own and after a while, she finally broached them.

“So, how’d you end up living here?” she asked casually, twirling her quill between her fingers. One of the things she loved about having wings was that she’s never hurting for a pen. Ink was another matter entirely though.

Keith shrugged. “I left the Guard a few years ago and went here.”

Pidge raised a skeptical brow. “You left the Guard and just decided to live out here?”

She doubted the first thing in anyone’s mind when looking for a place to live after quitting the Guard was up a dangerous mountain.

There was a bit of a pause before Keith slowly said, “I actually knew about Shiro before that. He saved my life and when I quit, I went to find him.”

Pidge frowned a bit at that. It sounded like Keith didn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to go to. Obviously, if someone was living up here alone, that’s kind of a given, but it said something about Keith when his first course of action wasn’t “get a job that would hire me” or even “find a town to settle in”, it’s “find the dragon that saved my life”. It made her wonder what kind of life he led up until then.

Keith gestured to his left past a clump of brambles, brown and bare. “Past here’s where ewmor herds usually are in spring. It’s a great place to hunt during that season, but that includes predators too.”

“What’s an ewmor?” Pidge asked, letting the subject go. Creatures she’d never heard of or seen before weren’t anything new to her in her journey. It didn’t mean she shouldn’t find out about them.

“They’re large grazing animals. Kind of like a deer crossed with a sheep,” Keith replied, continuing on their way. 

“Where are they the rest of the year?” she couldn’t help but question. It might be useful to know the migratory patterns of the animals here to determine whether they correlated to the magic flow.

“Down the mountain. They’re here until mid-summer.”

Pidge wrote that down.

Keith showed her to a few more places of interest before they stopped for lunch of dry meat and then they hunted for some more food.

Between the three of them, it was easy. Pidge spotted prey from the air and together with Keith, they herded it towards Red, who delivered the kill. Keith deftly gutted, skinned, and then divided it up so that everyone could carry a piece home.

By the time they circled back to the house with their prize, the day was steadily melting into late afternoon.

“Oh, right.” He turned to Pidge. “You need to make a whistle for Shiro to enchant so you could call him.”

Wow. That sounded way cool.

“A whistle that could call Shiro?” Pidge prompted with the beginnings of excitement. She definitely needed to learn more about that.

“It doesn’t have to work. It could even be just a tube, but just something you could blow on.” Keith reached under his wool collar to dig out a small, narrow pipe of bone attached to a cord of leather around his neck. “Shiro can hear the wind. He’ll be able to hear it wherever you are at any time and he’ll come to you.” He put the necklace away again and eyed her, the intensity of it sobering. Even Red was watching her intently, stiff with triangular ears swiveled forward. “But _only_ use it during an emergency.”

“Of course,” Pidge agreed solemnly.

He didn’t need to tell her that Shiro was risking a lot by flying to them without knowing the situation they were calling him for, so it was an enormous burden of trust they were placing on her to have him at her beck and call. She wouldn’t dream of breaking that trust. She didn’t want to hurt Shiro any more than Keith did. 

Nonetheless, she assessed his stony face and said, “Not that I’m complaining, but I’d thought you would’ve waited like a year before telling me about something like this.”

“Shiro wouldn’t have offered to let you stay if he felt like you weren’t a good person. Fel, he would’ve blown you off this mountain.” Keith shrugged but the motion was a little jerky. “Even if I don’t trust you, I trust Shiro’s judgement and he would’ve wanted you to have a whistle in case something happened.”

It was something incredible for Keith to have a bond like this with the Guardian of Glasycus.

“Okay,” Pidge nodded, “I’ll make a whistle. When can Shiro enchant it?”

“Whenever he gets back, I guess. He could be gone for a week, but he usually stops by to see how I’m doing. You could ask him then,” Keith replied, continuing on towards the house while Red separated from him to go elsewhere in the forest after having him take the load off her back.

Pidge grinned wide. Now that the serious matters were over with, she was brimming with excitement again at the thought of the whistle. It made her jittery just thinking about it. The magic that would go into it and the way it would’ve been weaved... She couldn’t wait to try to pick apart how the enchantment worked. Of course, she’ll have some questions for Shiro. She had a lot of questions for him.

“Great, that’s more than enough time.” She didn’t bother to hide the glee in her voice, already thinking up what she wanted her whistle to be like. Sure she could just make a tube like Keith did and be done with it, but this was supposed to be something special.

In her hometown, flutes and whistles were tools used to connect with the spirits of nature. Practically everyone had at least one of either or both and it was one of the things that children were taught to make, so crafting one was easy for her. The question was what she wanted it to be like.

She had to keep it small and light, of course, but it wouldn’t hurt if it had another function, like as a light source. Hmm…  Other than glass, crystal, or polished metal, no other materials would make good light absorbers but maybe…

First, she’ll need to make the whistle itself.

She turned back towards the edge of the forest and flew up to snap an appropriately sized, straight stick with her feet.

Material secured, she switched the stick over to her hand and went inside with it. She set down her portion of meat beside Keith, who was coaxing a fire.

Pidge sat herself beside him, taking out her knife and starting on the branch like she had the first night she met Keith killing time. It was going to be tricky since the whistle was going to be so small and the wood wasn’t fresh, but she could do it.

“Aren’t you going to help cook?” Keith asked blandly to which she shrugged.

“If you want it burned or undercooked or both at the same time, sure. I can make soup or stew or sauce but other than that, I’m no good cooking.”

She didn’t need to look up from her work to know that Keith was shooting her an aggravated look, but he didn’t comment. She suspected it was because she’d already demonstrated she was helpful in other areas like scouting and she was self-sufficient otherwise.

In any case, she quickly became immersed in her project so that everything was just the whistle she was shaping, the knife in her hands, and finishing, barely noticing when her own share of dinner was placed beside her.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?”

“Hmm?”

A sigh. “Never mind.”

It was probably half an hour later when she finally done and she held the whistle up to the light triumphantly with a small, “Ah-ha!”

She blew on it and a shrill note split the air.

“Finished?” drawled Keith from the narrow table to the right of the one-room house. It used to be pushed up against the corner on the left side but it was moved to accommodate Pidge’s stay.

“Yup,” she sighed. She was pretty happy with herself. She glanced down to her right and frowned at the empty wooden plate. “Hey!” She shot an accusing glare at Keith. “What happened to my dinner?”

Keith only shrugged. “Red ate it. You didn’t look like you were going to eat it anytime soon so…”

She redirected her glare at Red lounging on the floor. She only flicked her tail in response.

“Ugh,” Pidge groaned, flopping backwards. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

“It was on the floor, you weren’t eating it, it’s fair game,” Keith replied unsympathically.

“This is the last time I go to bed hungry,” Pidge swore and meant it with every fiber of her being.

\---

Shiro visited four days later. He was already lying across from the front of the house just as Pidge returned from her own foray further away around the mountain. The airs of Glasycus was colder and a little more unpredictable than what she was normally used to, but that wasn’t going to stop her from flying out, especially not if she needed to in order to find her family.

“Oh, Shiro. Good timing,” she greeted as she landed, satchel partly full with some interesting things she found on her way that she wanted to study. If she had time, she also wanted to map this mountain too. It’d help to be able to mark the locations she already visited for clues about Matt and her dad and to make notes on. Not right now though. She didn’t have any large pieces of paper. She’s going to have to ask Keith if it’s possible to get any.

“Hello, Pidge. How’s your stay so far?” Shiro greeted back pleasantly, lowering his head towards the ground so that Pidge didn’t have to hurt her neck craning it up to look at him.

“It’s been alright. I can’t really complain. Except for that one time Red stole my dinner,” she groused. “Anyway, a few days ago, Keith asked me to make a whistle for you to enchant. How does it work?”

She couldn’t keep the eagerness from showing on her face or from her voice. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see magic that was said to belong uniquely to the Dragon of the Mountains up front and personal. Well, maybe not once-in-a-lifetime if she was going to be seeing Shiro around a lot, but it didn’t take away from the fact that this was still a rare chance of study many magicians would give their souls for.

“First, you’re going to have to show me your whistle before I can do anything,” Shiro said, amused.

Pidge took out the whistle she had strung around her neck like Keith had and removed it.

She had covered it in resin so that it shone dimly wherever the low evening light hit it. It solved the problem of needing reflective materials in order to create something that could give off light with some magic. The light the whistle gave off wasn’t nearly as bright as it would’ve been if she used glass, crystal, or highly polished metal, but it worked well enough.

“Oh, you’ve made it into a flameless torch,” Shiro commented, sounding impressed as he peered at it.

Pidge grinned, feeling pride well in her chest. “Yup. I figured if I found myself caught out after dark, I could use it to see or if I wanted to work on something at night.”

Shiro nodded approvingly. “That’s good thinking.”

Pidge felt warm at the compliment. “Thanks. So could you enchant it? I want to see how your magic works.”

“Okay, hold still. This’ll be quick.”

Shiro took a breath and then blew gently towards Pidge and she thought she could see slivers of silver as they wound themselves towards the whistle. Was that tracking magic? It felt like no more than a mild spring breeze when it touched her hand and vanished like mist into the small piece of wood.

Once the enchantment was settled in, Pidge held it up to the orange sky and squinted at it to see if there were any changes. When she didn’t see any, she tried blowing on it.

There was the same single tune but otherwise, it didn’t sound any different.

“How do I know it works?” Pidge asked, looking up at Shiro.

“If you want, you could try it tomorrow; fly out somewhere random and blow on it then watch me come,” Shiro offered, voice once more full of amusement.

Pidge furrowed her brows. “Are you sure? Aren’t you busy?”

“I can spare a few moments or hours to help you test out your new toy,” Shiro said, pulling up the ends of his scaly lips in a grin. He already knew her too well.

Pidge returned the grin and put on her whistle again. “Great. We’ll start tomorrow then. But how do you do it? How are you supposed to hear a whistle even if it’s soundless?”

“It’s not so much the sound but the air you blow. The magic will make the wind carry your breath to me. I listen to the wind, not sound,” Shiro replied. “It’s how I learn about things even from far away.”

“But doesn’t that mean any old wind could bring you random pieces of information? And with this much wind up here…” Pidge shuddered to think of having so many things bombard her ears.

“That’s why I selectively listen to what I want to hear, like distress calls or one of your calls, and tune out everything else. But that also means I’m not attuned to everything that goes on out there or everyone who comes through here.” Shiro sounded a bit apologetic.

Nonetheless, Pidge could feel her heart rise with her dawning revelation at that. “But if that’s true… wouldn’t that mean that you would’ve heard my family if something bad happened to them?”

“I would,” Shiro confirmed confidently, “which is why we shouldn’t give up on finding them just yet.”

“Yeah,” Pidge agreed, full of new hope.

Matt and her dad were both out there somewhere unharmed. They just couldn’t come home for some reason and when she found them, she was going to unleash the wrath of Fel on them.


End file.
